Earnings preview: Rite Aid stock drops ahead of Q4 earnings

April quarter’s earnings season will start this week with quarterly reporting of Levi Strauss (LEVI) on Tuesday, Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and Delta Airlines (DAL) on Wednesday, and Rite Aid Corp (RAD) on Thursday. Apart from these companies, banking giants JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are set to report their quarterly results on Friday. Out of these companies, drugstore chain Rite Aid’s quarterly performance will be the most watched one as Rite Aid stock plunged to a multi-year low ($0.51) last Thursday.

On average, analysts expect Rite Aid to report a loss of 1 cent per share for its fourth quarter of 2019 on revenue of $5.55 billion which compares with a loss of 1 cent per share on revenue of $5.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. The company had reported a profit of 1 cent per share in the third quarter in which analysts had predicted the company to report breakeven earnings. Revenue grew 1.8% year-over-year to $5.45 billion.

Rite Aid (RAD) Q3 2019 earnings infograph

When Rite Aid reported third quarter earnings, it narrowed FY19 revenue outlook to a range of $21.80-21.95 billion from the prior estimate of $21.7-22.1 billion. Adjusted loss outlook was altered to a range of $0.03 to $0.01 per share from the previous outlook range of loss of $0.03 per share to a profit of $0.01 per share range.

Rite Aid stock showed some slight recovery on March 13 after the company announced about its decision to layoff 400 employees and the exit of top executives CEO John Standley, CFO Darren Karst and COO Kermit Crawford. However, the company has been trading on NYSE under $1 for quite a long time.

As per NYSE’s listing rule, a company should have at least a $1.00 share price at the last trading day of any month during the six-month cure period and has to maintain at least a $1.00 average closing share price over the preceding 30 consecutive trading days. To avoid delisting, Rite Aid stockholders approved reverse stock split on March 21, 2019.

The troubled company has been facing heavy competition from e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) and its peers Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) and CVS Health (CVS). Walgreens reported its second quarter results last Monday and the stock slumped 13% as the results missed Street’s estimates and the company lowered its earnings forecast for fiscal 2019.

Investors will be keenly looking out on what the company says about the reverse stock split, stepping down of senior executive management, layoff of 400 corporate employees, and what’s the company has got in store to combat the competition and overcome the challenging macro conditions.

At the end of Monday’s trading session, RAD shares closed down 3%. The stock had given a negative return of 21% so far this year and plunged 65% in the past 12 months.